He*

Some things happened in his life that made him too doubtful and cynical, and cost him his faith in his own goodness and that of the world…

And so…

He believes no good deed can redeem humanity, and that humanity shall be saved only by God’s grace… a God whom he occasionally disobeys his rules as he pins it on Satan and the lure of sins…

He hates himself thinking his hatred could perhaps purify his soul from his sins… but in hating himself, he bestows great injustice on others with his preconceived malicious expectations of them…

And so…

He sees the world through very dark shades that questions and even eliminate light and beauty, leaving nothing but sin and spite… people are sinners who are only motivated by lust to all that’s wrong, and he keeps getting tempted to join them until his guilt tears him apart into a self-forced salvation from which he relapses, over and over…

He is consumed with fear… not from God, for he believes in His mercy and grace… perhaps from people, even though he despises them… for they can harm him with their bigotry, hypocrisy, and narrow-mindedness, overlooking how he constantly judges them the same way he fears they do him…

Or is he afraid of himself… or of the voice of his own demon?? He insists on calling that inner voice all sorts of unholy names… he blames him for every sin and every indulgence to temptation… he blames him for enjoying life’s simple pleasures and for finding beauty in “sinful” words…

And so…

He strips himself from that voice, and condemns it as well as all those who speak with the same tone… deeming himself to an eternity of reluctantly living up to virtues that do not keep him from falling, and with every fall, he fails to enjoy the sensation free-falling, he wastes his time fearing the minute the cold floor beneath him will break his bones instead of learning how to fly in the process, and perhaps rise up to those virtues….

I know him, I see people I know in parts of him, I recognize someone I used to be as well…

But I would like to believe that I broke free… that I believe in people’s goodness just as much as I believe in God’s good grace…

I would like to believe that I love and forgive myself for every sin, and that accepting myself for who I am will only bring me closer to my salvation and will strengthen my hand-made fabric of virtues by which I can live…

I would like to believe that more good than bad shall come out of trusting humanity, and that whatever bad that shall touch me will be a lesson well learned… that we learn to protect ourselves after having been hurt, and that any other way of self-protection is more like self-denial of LIFE…

So, I see him, I feel anger at him, I feel anger for him… because I know he needs to let down his guard and trust more despite that pain that will pierce through his heart as light touches it for he had shielded in the dark for too long … I wish I could tell him that bliss is within pain and that it’s for us to unfold the latter without mutilating what it covers…

*inspired by the protagonist of Youssef Zeidan’s Azazil (that I haven’t yet finished)